Presenter: Jennifer Van den Avijle, User Services Manager (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
Abstract:
Every library collection has hiatuses, a library cannot purchase every book published. In addition, for the University of Antwerp library faculty library advisors guide collection purchase and selection but often lack a clear collection development plan or sufficient budget. Interlibrary loan (ILL) offers our patrons an affordable, easy and quick way to fill the most pressing needs where those hiatuses are concerned. International requests however can be costly and have a high delivery runtime with only a short lending period.
This paper presents the findings of the University of Antwerp Library after four years of implementing Purchase on Demand via Interlibrary Loan (POD-ILL) as an additional acquisition model. We provide a short introduction on the concept of POD-ILL and how we set up this service in our library. Next, we take a closer look at the collection purchased through POD-ILL over the past four years. As expected, most purchases were made for the faculties of History, Literature, Law and Social Sciences. These are faculties with the highest number of ILL requests and a predominance in use of print materials and books. As an alternative to international ILL, the main benefit is the extended loan options due to an owned versus lent copy. Our yearly budget was more than sufficient to cover the cost, which has provided some leeway in the purchase strategy and parameters. We have recently opted for inclusion of study books that are in high demand with students. We conclude this paper by briefly looking to the future. How could we improve or expand our service.